US sanctions Cuban president, family members amid growing tensions

The US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions Thursday on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and several members of his inner circle, including relatives of former leader Raul Castro.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Diaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza and her son Manuel Anido Cuesta to the Specially Designated Nationals list.

The designations also target Alejandro Castro Espin, the son of Raul Castro, and his own son, Raul Alejandro Castro Calis.

The move also targets the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Cuban military and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a massive local monitoring system established in 1960 to report "counter-revolutionary" activity.

Additional designations include the state-backed mining venture Minera La Victoria SA and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), along with its commercial travel wing, Amistur Cuba SA.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington intends to "handle" Cuba once the administration concludes its efforts regarding Iran.

“It sort of collapsed, and we're going to handle that as soon as we've finished...We'll take care of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that's done, on our way back, we'll just make a little brief stop," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Asked whether the US sanctions on Cuba are meant to accelerate its collapse, he replied "no.”

The president asserted that he simply wants Cuba to be a “nicely run country that can feed its people.”

There was no immediate reaction from Havana.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cuba of a “continuous campaign of political, ideological, and institutional warfare against the United States.”

"These sanctions target the Cuban regime's wide-ranging and violent radical action network and the actors who implement and fund it," he said.

"The entities and individuals designated today direct or fund the regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world," he added.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel condemned the US for its "aggressiveness and perversity" after Washington imposed new sanctions on him, members of the Castro family, and other senior Cuban officials.

Diaz-Canel and other Cuban officials rejected the measures as part of a longstanding US effort to destabilize the island nation, while Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the sanctions were interventionist and would fail to create divisions within the country.

"Every US action aimed ​at creating a ​scenario of ⁠conflict between the two countries is doomed to failure," Rodriguez said.